Behind Big Brother

Big Brother ratings report

How did the season do?

Final figures are in for the season, how did Big Brother stack up in the ratings game?

In the past week most news outlets have been declaring Big Brother 2012 a relative success, while The Australian took a different approach saying “Big Brother stumbles in ratings“.

Viewing figures for Big Brother stayed fairly stable throughout the season, with a grand average of 1.02m per episode.

However the the season did suffer from huge audience erosion, particularly in the later weeks. Here’s how the erosion played out:

The launch night was the highest rating show of the season at 1.71m but shed approximately 500,000 viewers as it settled into regular daily shows.

The first and only Sunday daily show broadcast on GO! Channel was a complete ratings disaster, only coming in with 230,000 viewers. It was very swiftly merged into the main eviction show on Channel Nine.

From weeks 3 to 7 viewership was consistent with Monday-Wednesday daily shows receiving between 1.02m to 1.10m. Thursday and Friday daily shows were less than this but remained stable. Evictions hovered around 1.05m.

After Josh left the house ratings began to tumble. His farewell show managed to grab more than a million viewers but for the rest of the season the only episodes to break the 1m mark were Monday night nominations and specials. Not even Sunday evictions managed to get this high.

Sam’s eviction was the lowest rating of the season with just 900,000 viewers. However the Zoe-Michael double eviction clawed back up to 1.13m.

The finale show ended with 1.47m viewers which was a solid result, but below what the Nine execs were hoping for.

TV Tonight reports Big Brother performed solidly in advertising friendly demographics but when compared to other reality TV forms was somewhat lacklustre. The figures pulled in for the Big Brother finale are typical of a weekly edition of the X-Factor.

Regardless it seems Channel Nine are happy with the performance of the season given the show was extended from it’s original end date (albeit by half a week).

Despite reports that Big Brother appeared on Channel Nine’s 2013 media buyer show reel, it has yet to appear on any public-facing advertisements. Big Brother’s vague “will get back to you” message at the conclusion of the finale has left an ominous feeling over the survival of the series.